THE universe may be teeming with miniature black holes, many of which are pummelling the Earth, a startling study from NASA has found.

Primordial black holes – ones that relate to the beginning of time – could have formed during the first second of the Big Bang, and are now flying through the universe at shocking speeds.

The study from NASA revealed that these miniature versions, which are likely to be no bigger than the full-stop at the end of this sentence, could smash into the Earth every 1,000 years or so.

Despite their size the tiny black holes could weigh as much as the moon, but would likely just pass straight through Earth, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t wreak havoc on modern technology.

Timothy Brandt, an astrophysicist at the Institute for Advanced Study,told Business Insider: “Asteroid-mass black holes, if they were all of the dark matter, might pass through the Earth once a millennium or so, but would be very, very hard to detect.

Amazing Hubble Space Images

These stunning images from the Hubble Space Telescope are taken from the April 2015 issue of National Geographic Magazine.

Bubble Nebula, also known as NGC 7653, which is an emission nebula located 11 000 light-years away

Experts are still unsure of what dark matter is, despite knowing it exerts a gravitational pull on the remaining 20 per cent of normal matter – which is the reason why the universe is always expanding.

Scientists have dedicated their careers to looking for dark matter particles in the universe, but, so far, to no avail.

This is why scientists have highlighted the theory that we may be surrounded by miniature black holes, which is what dark matter could actually be.

Alexander Kashlinsky, a cosmologist at NASA, said: "On the dark matter particle side of the spectrum, the range of possibilities is narrowing down quickly.

"If nothing is found there, and nothing is found in the black hole theatre, then we may be in a crisis of science."